cmd defaults to F: drive - windows

Question

When I open cmd on my laptop it is defaulting to the F: drive. This is troubling me does anyone know how it got that way or how to get it back to where it opens to the C: drive by default?

Answer 1

Use the command
C:
To change to the drive C. It would of course work for any drive letter.

Answer 2

Very minor nit: if you're using Windows 7 you don't need the cmdhere powertoy, it's built in to Explorer.
You just navigate to a directory in Windows Explorer then hold down the shift key and right click. "Open command window here" is one of the selections on the context menu.
When it comes to opening cmd.exe in a specific directory, I just create a shortcut to cmd.exe and then in the shortcut properties I set "Start in:" to the drive/directory I want it to start in.
Using a shortcut allows me to customize the cmd.exe windows depending on what I'm using it for. For normal file editing/viewing I use a 180x60 window and appropriate font, but when I want to read/search log files I have a shortcut that opens a 260x100 window with a smaller font. That way I can view most long log file lines without having to use the horizontal scroll.

Answer 3

http://blog.stevienova.com/2007/04/08/change-your-default-cmd-prompt-path/
Sometimes, your path when you go to start->run, CMD will be something
you don’t want. In active directory or on an NT domain, sometimes your
default home path might be a network drive. This isn’t so good when
you are offline or drop offline after being online. The CMD prompt is
set to a place where you can’t get to.
To change the path, you can edit the registry (at your own risk)
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftCommand Processor] “Autorun”=”c:”
This will change the path to your c: drive.

Answer 4

I believe it defaults to %HOMEDRIVE%\%HOMEPATH% so if you can muck about with those environment variables that might be an option. I can't edit these environment variables on my company's network, so I had to use the AutoRun to change it to something sane.

Answer 5

quick answer: cmd /k c:
long answer to make it "automagical":
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/autoruncmd.htm

Answer 6

In RegEdit.exe I created a String:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun
The value I used for AutoRun was "D:"

Answer 7

On the start screen / menu, type in "cmd", right-click it and select "Open File - Location".
In the opened window, right-Click on "Command Prompt" icon, select "Properties", and edit the "Start In" property to your desired path. I used "C:\" as an example

Answer 8

If you are opening it from a shortcut change the working dir for the shortcut.

Answer 9

In addition to the other answers, there's a nice powertoy for XP called "open command window here." It adds an option to your right-click context menu when you click inside a folder to open a command window using that directory as the starting path.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx

Answer 10

I ran into a similar issue where cmd would always open up in a particular directory (annoying when running scripts which invoke cmd). The best way to deal with this is to edit your autorun settings. Raymond Chen has a nice article about this here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/11/21/6447771.aspx
The summary is that when you start a command shell, it checks the autorun registry key, and executes the commands stored there. The registry keys it checks are:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun
and/or
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun

Answer 11

Some answers already mentioned AutoRun as a solution.
But that can be very dangerous, as the AutoRun entry will be executed for any new cmd.exe instance (only pipes ignore the AutoRun).
A simple expample that fails:
cd /d E:\myPath
FOR /F "delims=" %%Q in ('dir') do echo - %%Q
With AutoRun=C:, this shows the content of the current path of drive C:
You can still use AutoRun, but it should be a batch script, that checks if it was called interactive, by FOR/F or by drag&drop.
#echo off
REM *** To enable this script, call it by <scriptName> --install
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
REM *** ALWAYS make a copy of the complete CMDCMDLINE, else you destroy the original!!!
set "_ccl_=!cmdcmdline!"
REM *** The check is necessary to distinguish between a new cmd.exe instance for a user or for a "FOR /F" sub-command
if "!_ccl_:~1,-2!" == "!comspec!" (
REM ***** INTERACTIVE ****
REM *** %1 contains only data, when the script itself was called from the command line
if "%~1" NEQ "" (
goto :direct_call
)
endlocal
doskey /macrofile="%~dp0\cmdMacros.mac"
echo ********************************************************************
echo * AutoRun executed from "%~f0"
echo * Macros loaded from "%~dp0\cmdMacros.mac"
echo ********************************************************************
cd /d C:\myPath
) ELSE (
REM *** Called by a FOR command, by an explorer click or a drag & drop operation
REM *** Handle PROBLEMATIC Drag&Drop content, if necessary
endlocal
)
exit /b
:direct_call
if "%~1" == "--install" (
reg add "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor" /v "AutoRun" /t REG_SZ /d "%~f0"
exit /b
)
if "%~1" == "--show" (
reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor" /v AutoRun
exit /b
)
if "%~1" == "--remove" (
reg DELETE "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor" /v AutoRun /f
)
exit /b